Humboldt State student’s murder: $776,300 award to suspect is thrown out

A judge overturned a jury’s award of more than $775,000 to a young man who claimed a police officer fabricated evidence in arresting him on suspicion of murdering a Humboldt State University student outside a party.

Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley ruled Monday that a “reasonable officer in [that] situation would have believed there was a fair probability” that the plaintiff, Kyle Zoellner, had stabbed David Josiah Lawson outside the Arcata house party on April 15, 2017.

Her order nullified the verdict reached last week by a federal court jury in San Francisco. It had awarded Zoellner $726,300 in economic damages and $50,000 in punitive damages.

The jurors in the defamation suit said they concluded that Arcata police detective Eric Losey “was actively involved in causing Zoellner to be prosecuted,” that he acted with malice, and that Zoellner was harmed. But a jury is not allowed to decide questions of probable cause, so that final criterion fell to the judge.

In his arrest report, Losey said that several witnesses reported Zoellner was involved in the fight that left Lawson dead and that one witness specifically named Zoellner as the combatant who stabbed Lawson. Then, before the preliminary hearing, Losey informed prosecutors that he had listened to a recording of the interview and found that the witness had never actually given Zoellner’s name.

A judge ruled after the preliminary hearing that there was not enough evidence to try Zoellner, and a grand jury later declined to indict him. Nobody else was ever arrested for the murder.

At the time of his arrest, Zoellner was a 23-year-old chef for a catering company. He had not attended the party but went there to pick up his girlfriend. An argument over the girlfriend’s missing phone prompted physical fights involving several men and women, and Lawson — a 19-year-old sophomore — was fatally stabbed with a kitchen knife.

After the charges were dropped, Zoellner sued the city of Arcata, Losey and several other police employees. A federal judge in San Francisco ruled in March that one claim would go to trial: the allegation of malicious prosecution by Losey.